400 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



Partly through mathematical and partly through experi- 

 mental research, physical science has, of late years, 

 assumed a momentous position in the world. Both in a 

 material and in an intellectual point of view it has pro- 

 duced, and it is destined to produce, immense changes 

 vast social ameliorations, and vast alterations in the popular 

 conception of the origin, rule, and governance of natural 

 things. By science, in the physical world, miracles are 

 wrought, while philosophy is forsaking its ancient meta- 

 physical channels, and pursuing others which have been 

 opened, or indicated by scientific research. This must 

 become more and more the case as philosophical writers 

 become more deeply imbued with the methods of science, 

 better acquainted with the facts which scientific men have 

 established, and with the great theories which they have 

 elaborated. 



If you look at the face of a watch, you see the hour and 

 minute-hands, and possibly also a second-hand, moving 

 over the graduated dial. Why do these hands move? and 

 why are their relative motions such as they are observed to 

 be? These questions cannot be answered without opening 

 the watch, mastering its various parts, and ascertaining 

 their relationship to each other. When this is done, we 

 find that the observed motion of the hands follows of 

 necessity from the inner mechanism of the watch when 

 acted upon by the force invested in the spring. The 

 motion of the hands may be called a phenomenon of art, 

 but the case is similar with the phenomena of nature. 

 These also have their inner mechanism and their store of 

 force to set that mechanism going. The ultimate problem 

 of physical science is to reveal this mechanism, to discern 

 this store, and to show that from the combined action of 

 both, the phenomena of which they constitute the basis, 

 must, of necessity, flow. 



I thought an attempt to give you even a brief and sketchy 

 illustration of the manner in which scientific thinkers 

 regard this problem would not be uninteresting to you on 

 the present occasion; more especially as it will give me 

 occasion to say a word or two on the tendencies and limits 

 of modern science; to point out the region which men of 

 science claim as their own, and where it is futile to oppose 

 their advance; and also to define, if possible, the bourne 

 between this and that other region, to which the question- 



